It is common today in supermarkets and hardware stores, to find articles packaged in plastic bags with paper or foil headers sealing the bag. These headers have a hole in the center to permit hanging the bag on a nail or other hook with other bags of the same article, one in front of the other. This form of storing and displaying packages is much more efficient and economical than putting them on shelf space. The bags are suitable for packaging most dry goods such as, for example, food articles like potato chips, cookies, etc.,and small hardware items such as nails, screws, washers etc., just to name a few. The manufacture of this type of packaging is also very efficient and fast, since the machines for producing these packages operate continuously and at very high speeds as follows. A plastic sleeve is held in a vertical position, is sealed on the bottom, forming a bag, which is then filled with the desired product and sealed just above the product area. The sealed bag is cut from the sleeve leaving the sleeve with a sealed bottom. The bag is then conveyed to a second station for mounting thereon a printed header containing relevant information concerning the product, its manufacturer etc. The remaining sleeve with sealed bottom goes through the same process, i.e. it is filled, sealed, cut and the bags conveyed for attaching a header. With the present machines, the filling and sealing operations proceed at very high speeds and a bottleneck generally occurs when attaching the header. The header itself is comprised of a strip of paper or foil which may have an adhesive or heat sealable backing and a crimp for folding it in half. When the sealed bag is brought to the header station, the header is folded over the sealed edge of the bag from above and stapled onto the bag or sealed on the bag under heat and/or pressure, so that the upper portion of the header is firmly attached to the package. The bottom of the header is generally loose and conforms to the curvature of the filled bag, but is not necessarily sealed to it. A hole for hanging the bag is provided in the upper portion of the header. This hole may be pre-punched or made subsequent to sealing the header to the bag. Since the attachment of the header requires that the bag be stationary for a significant amount of time while the header is fitted onto it from above and heat sealed, this part of the process holds up the entire packaging process. Furthermore, fitting the header directly above the top of the bag and aligning it is also a problem and slows up the operation.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a method of attaching headers to filled bags automatically and continuously at a faster rate than is presently possible.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for sealing headers on filled bags.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system of packaging plastic bags with headers automatically, quickly and efficiently.
Still another object is to provide a chain of any number of plastic bags with headers for easy display of the bags.
In accordance with the present invention, there is thus provided a method for simultaneously sealing filled bags with headers using high speed automated bag sealing apparatus comprising providing a filled bag for sealing, providing a header strip aligned against a side of said bag in a predetermined position and simultaneously sealing said bag and said header strip to said bag with said high speed automated bag sealing apparatus. Apparatus for simultaneously sealing filled bags together with headers at high speeds is also provided.